


Dishes

by kaliawai512



Series: It's Raining [7]
Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Cinnamon Roll Papyrus, Fluff, Gen, Goat Mom Is Best Mom, Hurt/Comfort, Papyrus is a Good Brother, Past Character Death, Platonic Female/Male Relationships, Platonic Relationships, Sans Needs A Hug, Toriel needs a hug
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-27
Updated: 2018-06-27
Packaged: 2019-05-28 04:31:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,251
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15040784
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kaliawai512/pseuds/kaliawai512
Summary: "knock knock.""... Who is there?"(Part of theIt's Rainingseries. Sequel toIt's Raining Right Here.)





	Dishes

**Author's Note:**

> Just to be clear, Sans and Toriel's relationship in this is 100% platonic. I mean, I'm sure you could read Soriel into it if you want ... but frankly, there are enough mother-son undertones that I think that might be a bit creepy.
> 
> Either way, I hope you all enjoy! And next week, the next full story in this series finally begins: _The Flowers are Blooming_. I wonder if you can guess what it's about. ;)

The toughest thing about Snowdin to get used to, by far, was the silence.

It wasn’t always silent, of course. The Guards were plenty loud if he got them riled up—and all it took to do that was bring out a bone and throw it. The people in town chattered about as much as the people in Hotland had, and Papyrus … well, Papyrus could double the volume of any room all on his own.

But it was still quieter than Hotland. Much, much quieter. The people were quieter, more quaint—for the most part, at least—and it had a “small town” feel that Hotland just … didn’t.

And he wasn’t sure if he would ever get used to not hearing the Core humming in the background.

It should have been a relief, not to hear it anymore, after … everything. But he still found himself missing it.

And if Snowdin itself was quiet, then the area outside Snowdin where his sentry station had been set up was even quieter.

He had been here a few times, as a kid, when they went to go visit Grillby and see the minimal sights of the town. Back then, he had thought it was the coolest—heh—thing in the world, to be so far away from everything that you couldn’t hear anyone else. To see so many living trees. To see so much _snow._

Maybe he had been expecting that when he took the job, too.

But he realized very quickly that while the silence was nice for a little while, it didn’t take long for it to get old.

Especially when you had to sit there all day long.

It was a good job. He had known it would be—Papyrus wouldn’t have recommended it if it had been a bad job. It didn’t require him to think, or do anything except sit at his station and watch for humans that wouldn’t come. He had had to pass a test, sort of, to get hired, but the standards weren’t very high, and all he needed was a brief display of magic to convince his new supervisor that he could take care of himself.

On his first day, he had flopped down at his station and stared out at the snowy woods around him, and he remembered, for the first time in months, what his last “first day of work” had been like.

He started laughing to himself. Quietly at first, then almost hysterically. He waited for the laughter to turn into tears. It didn’t. It just faded after a minute, like regular laughter, even though it felt like anything but.

Sometimes he wondered whether he even had any tears left at this point.

He had settled in quickly, and gotten used to the minimal workload, including exactly how much he had to move around to avoid getting in trouble with the boss. But even after three months, he still hadn’t gotten used to the silence.

Which was probably where the idea of practicing his jokes while on duty had come from.

He had been telling more of them lately, and come to appreciate them more than he ever had. And if he didn’t think about why he enjoyed them, or why he had started telling them in the first place, then he could really enjoy them. Papyrus threw a fit whenever he told them, but Sans could see him smiling, just a little, and occasionally, he even heard him make a pun of his own. Which was all the encouragement Sans needed to keep going.

The Snowdin library was small, much smaller than he was used to, but it still had several joke books on hand, and he had been borrowing every one he could in an effort to pick up new ideas. His intuition was getting better, too—he had never thought you could build up a joke muscle, but he had been proven wrong, over and over again. The more he told, the easier it was to come up with new ones on the fly, sometimes not even realizing he was doing it until Papyrus was shrieking in protest.

So it only made sense that he would spend his days sitting around at his sentry station, telling jokes to thin air.

It was … entertaining. It kept his mind busy, at least. For a while. But hearing his voice fade into nothing got old after a while, and after the first month, he began searching for other places to sit and practice. Near the woods, where he could pretend there was someone in the trees biting back snickers at the punch lines. Closer to the town, where he could occasionally hear dogs barking in the distance, and some of them even stayed long enough to listen to a joke—if he held a bone in front of them the whole time, and threw it right afterward.

It was more than two and a half months in that he first noticed the door.

He had _seen_ the door before. Once, maybe twice. It was kind of hard to miss, if you went far enough past the town. He had heard some people saying it was the entrance to the Ruins, where monsters had all lived up until about a hundred years ago.

That was probably true, but then again, he had never been very interested in history.

He didn’t really care where the door led. It didn’t open—he had tried once, and found it very firmly locked shut—so there wasn’t any point in wondering. All that mattered was that it was a huge door in the middle of nowhere, and he had a long list of knock-knock jokes that worked a hell of a lot better if he had something to knock on.

So for the past two weeks, that was what he had done.

Every day, he would get to his station and sit around for a while in case someone checked on him, then pick up his joke book and walk down the long snowy path to the door. He left a few times to sit at his station or go to Grillby’s—he wasn’t going to eat anything Papyrus had packed for him, he didn’t have the motivation to cook, and frankly, Grillby’s was not only delicious, but his only option—but otherwise he just sat by the door, telling jokes all day long. It wasn’t the most entertaining thing in the world, especially since he didn’t have an audience. But it got him through the days, and it was a whole lot better than sitting at his station doing nothing.

Sometimes he would imagine someone listening to him. Sometimes he would imagine Papyrus groaning or stomping his foot at one of his jokes, or even the people at Grillby’s grumbling or chuckling. He would pause for dramatic effect or give a mock bow before continuing, and soak up the imagined appreciation for all it was worth.

But it didn’t matter how many times he imagined someone responding, how many jokes he had already told that day, or how engrossed he became in his little fantasy.

A real voice was very, very different from one in his head.

He knocked on the door, allowing a few seconds to pass before he spoke again.

“knock-knock.”

“Who is there?”

It was probably a good thing Sans was already sitting down, because even slumped against the door, he came very close to face-planting right in the snow.

He froze, his soul pounding, racing, his bones caught between trembling and frozen, his eyelights gone as he sat there, trying to process what he had heard. Because that had been a voice. He hadn’t imagined it, he knew the difference between things he imagined and things that were real, he _had_ to, and _that voice was real._

And … it was coming from behind the door.

He paused, looking over his shoulder, even though he knew he wouldn’t see anything. He heard nothing else. Not even breathing, though the door would have been too thick for him to hear that anyway. He hadn’t imagined it. He was sure of that. That door led to the Ruins, the Ruins that had been _abandoned_ a century ago, and there was someone behind it.

He forced his hands to relax and felt his body settle into the snow once more.

Well.

Even if none of this made any sense, he couldn’t exactly leave a joke unfinished.

“dishes.”

There was a pause, a long pause, and at first he thought maybe he _had_ imagined it, or maybe he had waited too long and the owner of the voice had left. Or maybe they just thought he was crazy.

“… dishes who?”

It was quiet, hesitant, uncertain. Definitely feminine, now that he had the chance to really listen to it. Despite his confusion, he felt his mouth curving up at the corners as he sat up straighter and tilted his head a little closer to the door.

“ _dishes_ a very bad joke.”

Then she snorted.

Actually full-out _snorted,_ before breaking into laughter so loud and ungraceful and absolutely _wonderful_ that he would never have guessed it was the same person who had been talking before. His chest warmed, in a way it so rarely did nowadays, and he felt his smile widening even further without his consent.

She laughed longer than he had ever heard anyone laugh at a joke, even a _good_ one, rather than the bad ones he had become so fond of lately. And as soon as she started to go quiet, he started another.

And another.

And another after that.

And she kept laughing. Every single time. She laughed like she had never heard a joke before, like he was the best comedian in existence. And Sans knew he wasn’t. He wasn’t trying to be. He told terrible jokes, terrible puns, because … well. That was what he told. He knew they weren’t good.

But she loved them. She _adored_ them.

And suddenly it was easy to forget why he had started telling them in the first place, and to believe that his only purpose was to make someone laugh like this.

“Knock knock!” she called back after around twenty jokes, almost making him jump with surprise.

He raised half his browbone. “who’s there?”

He could almost hear her snickering, as muffled and distant as the sound was.

“Old lady.”

“old lady who?”

“Oh!” she replied, high-pitched and giggling. “I did not know you could yodel.”

Sans had forgotten what it felt like to laugh without forcing it.

He hadn’t even realized how much he had missed it.

She waited until he had caught his breath, but then she told another one, and another, like she had been lining up jokes for decades without anyone to tell them to. Eventually he started adding his own back in, and then they went back and forth, he told one joke, she told one joke, like the best ping-pong match he could imagine.

And it kept going. Every once in a while, one of them would pause, and he thought that was it, it was over, and then he would think of another joke or she would break in with a particularly good pun and they would keep going, back and forth, telling jokes and laughing at them, like they were the only two people in the world.

It was weird. It was weird as hell, he still had no idea what was going on, and he absolutely loved it.

He was so engrossed with the jokes that he hardly noticed when it started getting dark outside. Darker than it usually was when he left his post, actually. When was the last time he had left work _late_? And he hadn’t been at his post all day, but apparently no one had noticed. He would have heard something if they had.

The lady was still giggling from his last joke, and it took all his willpower to clear his throat and cut it off.

“hey, uh … i gotta head home.”

She paused, for a long, heavy second, then seemed to snap out of her surprise. “Oh! Oh, yes, of course … it is quite late.”

She sounded … disappointed, but more understanding than most people he had met. He felt himself smiling still, even though it wasn’t quite as happy.

“this was fun.”

“Yes. Yes, it … it certainly was,” she replied, a little too fast, and almost awkward, as if she weren’t used to holding a conversation when she didn’t have jokes to use as a buffer. He could hear her hesitating, and waited for her to finish. “Will you be … coming back at all?”

Sans felt a smile twitch at the corners of his mouth.

“i’ll be around tomorrow, probably.”

The lady paused. “Would you come back tomorrow, then?”

“sure.”

He could hear her smiling, and it made his smile widen further.

“Wonderful!” she replied, and yep, he could definitely hear that smile. And something like relief underneath it, as if she had really feared that he wouldn’t be coming back. “I’ll … see you then. Or … talk to you, then, I suppose.”

“yeah.” He waited a second, lingering, even though it was only getting darker, even though it wasn’t going to do him any good to stand around. His face softened, just a bit. “night.”

“Goodnight.”

Sans lifted his hand, almost without thinking, and pressed it to the door, taking one more long moment to appreciate the sound of another living person on the other side.

Then he dropped his arm back to his side, turned around, and started back toward town.

* 

The walk home was … different than before.

Well. In most ways, it was exactly the same. He took the same route. He walked into the house with the same steps and pace as he always did, he asked Papyrus about his day, and the two of them ate one of the frozen dinners Sans had stocked the freezer with.

It was exactly the same, but it _felt_ different.

His mind always wandered when he went about his evening routine, as much as he tried to keep it on track. But for once, it didn’t wander off in one of its usual directions. The past. The far future. Even some of the more uncomfortable aspects of the present, lingering just below the surface.

His mind still wandered, but this time, it wandered to what jokes he might tell the lady tomorrow. It wandered to what jokes she might tell _him_ tomorrow. Whether he would be able to come up with some new ones on the fly, or even pick up a book from the library with some more ideas. They seemed to play off each other well. It was hard to imagine both of them running out of jokes.

He had to force the topic out of his mind when he reached his house, slipping the key into the front door and striding inside.

“hey, bro,” he called as he pushed the door shut behind him.

There was a clattering in the kitchen before Papyrus appeared in the doorway, an apron around his waist and his browbone raised in what looked like concern.

“SANS! YOU’RE … LATE,” he said, as if he couldn’t quite believe what he was saying. “WHY ARE YOU LATE?”

Sans glanced at the clock on the wall and noticed exactly how late it had gotten. Shit. He knew it was late, the lights had been dimmed around all of Snowdin, but he hadn’t realized it was past _eight._ He usually got home a little after five.

Damn, those jokes were distracting.

“sorry, bro, musta got sidetracked,” he said with what he hoped was a casual shrug.

Papyrus gave him a long, calculating look. Finally, he huffed, crossing his arms in irritation.

“HMPH!” He shook his head, apparently disappointed. “AND THE ONE TIME I THOUGHT MAYBE YOU WERE JUST SO ABSORBED IN YOUR WORK THAT YOU FORGOT IT WAS TIME TO LEAVE!”

Sans had long learned that any comments as to how un-engaging it was to stand around waiting for a human would go right over Papyrus’s head. Papyrus—this Papyrus, at least—could find just about anything engaging, if he put his mind to it. Maybe Sans would, too, if he cared enough to try.

Papyrus tutted to himself, then apparently got over his frustration and made a grand gesture toward the table.

“WELL, COME AND EAT DINNER. IT’S ALREADY COLD!”

Sans wanted to say that he wasn’t really hungry—he was, he thought, but it was late, and he knew that Papyrus would just sit there and wait for him to finish eating before he went to bed. But saying he wasn’t hungry would just make Papyrus rant on about him snacking too much at work, and that would get him riled up, and it would be even more difficult to get him to sleep.

So when Papyrus set the microwaved—and already chilled—frozen dinner in front of him on the table, Sans ate without complaint. Though quite a bit faster than he normally would have. Papyrus noticed, without a doubt, but thankfully, he let it go. The dinner was good, and it wasn’t difficult to eat it fast. Papyrus hadn’t tried cooking in a while—thankfully, even though Sans still missed his brother’s cooking—and seemed content to arrange frozen dinners on nice plates and make them look like they weren’t, well, frozen. It made him happy, in any case. And that was what was most important.

As soon as the last bite was in his mouth, Papyrus plucked the empty plate and utensils off the table and brought them to the sink to wash. Sans had tried offering to dry a few times, but frankly, Papyrus moved so fast that by the time Sans had dried one dish, Papyrus had finished washing the rest of them, and probably drying all the others, too.

They sat on the couch for a while and watched TV—not that there was much on, but several monsters had set up a broadcast of human shows that played over and over again at different times of the day, and it was something to do. It was only a few seconds after the clock struck eleven when Papyrus pushed himself off the couch and announced that he was getting ready for bed. Sans watched him go, then followed at a slower pace, climbing the stairs and stepping into Papyrus’s room.

It was still a pretty new routine, but he got the feeling it would stick.

It was hard to pinpoint _how_ it had started. As soon as they moved into their house, Papyrus had filled the shelves in his bedroom with all the books he could find, most of them either puzzle books or picture books. Some of them Sans had read growing up, but a lot of them he hadn’t. He wasn’t sure whether that spoke more to the differences between the universes or the fact that Sans had grown out of picture books when he was fairly young. Some things were different, but other things remained exactly the same.

When Papyrus came home one day with a pile of books in his arms and proudly announced that he had found his favorite series, _Fluffy Bunny,_ Sans felt like he might die.

Maybe the bedtime story thing had been inevitable. Papyrus seemed to have trouble winding down in the evenings. He was usually awake long after Sans went to bed, and got up long before Sans woke up. Granted, Sans slept in when he could, but not _that_ long. And while Papyrus seemed to be able to function quite well without sleep … it made Sans worry.

He wondered, once, whether that was how his brother had felt when he used to stay up all night finishing projects.

He had cut off that train of thought before it could go any further.

The point was, he was worried, and Papyrus didn’t show any signs of settling down, even after they got used to living in their new house. So one night, when Sans was tired and Papyrus was still buzzing around the house, Sans found himself suggesting they read something together.

That was all it had been. Reading something together.

Papyrus had picked the book—Sans still flinched when he plucked _Fluffy Bunny_ off the shelf. Sans had pulled up a chair, and suggested that Papyrus sit on his bed so they didn’t have to pull up another chair. Sans had to swallow a few times to keep his voice from cracking when he started reading, but he managed it, and before he knew it, he had fallen into the old habit again, the flow of the words, the rise and fall of the story, the book that had helped them both drift into sleep so many times when they were little—and a few more times when they were grown.

As he turned each page, he glanced up to find Papyrus a little more relaxed, sinking further into the bed, and when he reached the last page, Papyrus had settled down entirely, stretched out over the covers, still watching him intently. He was awake when Sans closed the book, but when Sans yawned and stretched and set the book back on the shelf, Papyrus stayed on the bed, and after Sans left the room, he didn’t hear Papyrus’s door open for the rest of the night.

Well. The rest of the night until four-thirty in the morning the next day, that is.

But that was five or six hours of sleep, more than Papyrus had gotten in months, and Sans counted that as a success.

So he did it again the next night. And the night after that, and the night after that.

Papyrus knew what he was doing, without a doubt, but he never said anything about it. There were still nights when he would get up after the story was finished and spend half of the night running around, but on other nights, he went to sleep. And the stories helped Sans just as much. They were … familiar, even if it was a painful kind of familiar, and he found it much easier to drift off when one of the last things he saw was his brother safe and comfortable in his own bed.

It probably would have seemed silly, from anyone else’s point of view. But this wasn’t anyone else’s point of view, and Sans wasn’t about to throw away anything that gave them even a few minutes of contentment.

“SO WHAT DID YOU DO AT WORK TODAY?” Papyrus asked as he slipped under the covers, arranging them carefully around himself before smoothing them out.

Sans’s mind flickered back to what it had felt like to be tucked in, to have someone there to make sure he was warm and snug, and bit back the urge to do the same thing now.

Instead, he shrugged.

“oh, you know. the usual.”

“DID YOU SEE A HUMAN?” Papyrus went on as Sans pulled up his usual chair next to the bed.

Sans opened the book and flashed him an apologetic grin. “sorry, bro. no humans today.”

Papyrus made a slight disappointed face, but he was smiling again a few seconds later.

“WELL, IF YOU SEE ONE TOMORROW, LET ME KNOW! I WANT TO BE THERE AT THE CRITICAL MOMENT WHEN YOU CATCH IT AND BRING IT TO THE KING!”

Sans’s eyes softened, just a little, in an effort to hide the twisting in the space where his gut would have been.

“course i will bro,” his voice quiet, because if he didn’t speak loud enough, maybe Papyrus wouldn’t be able to hear the pain. “it’s not like one could get past you anyway.”

Papyrus beamed, and Sans could almost see him standing there, in the entrance to the house, with a little orange-haired human tucked close to his side.

“OF COURSE NOT! I WOULD CATCH IT RIGHT AWAY!”

Sans chuckled, a forced, humorless noise, and opened the book.

Well. That was one good thing about working the Snowdin sentry station: he would know beforehand if a human arrived. Any humans that came in were likely to come in through the Ruins, and …

The Ruins.

Huh.

Right. That was where the door was supposed go. And it hadn’t been that long since the last human had fallen in this universe. If the lady had been there then …

“SANS?”

Sans jerked his head up, blinking, and found Papyrus watching him with wide, concerned eyes from under the covers. He took a moment to clear his head, then smiled, like nothing was wrong.

“sorry, bro. just tired.”

He doubted his brother believed him, but he said nothing, so Sans just readjusted the book in his lap and flipped it open to the first well-worn page.

“fluffy bunny was a happy bunny, and he had a lot of friends …”

* 

It was the first time Sans could remember that he was actually excited for work.

He was out of bed before Papyrus could even get to his door, and when he was in the kitchen, putting together a quick breakfast, he heard his brother pounding on his door anyway, demanding he get up. Papyrus almost fell over when Sans called upstairs, telling him that he was already up, and proceeded to spend all of their morning meal staring at him as if he had contracted some mysterious deadly illness.

Sans came very close to telling Papyrus what had happened the day before, but … well, he didn’t know. There was no _reason_ for him not to tell Papyrus. Maybe … maybe he was afraid that if he told him, if he said it out loud, then it wouldn’t be real. He would go back to the door and the lady wouldn’t be there. It still seemed more than a little surreal. Maybe he thought, deep down, that it was just in his head.

Or maybe not.

He didn’t know. Either way, he just reassured Papyrus he was fine, and though he could tell Papyrus didn’t quite believe him, he still let it go.

He was out of the house a good half hour earlier than usual. It wasn’t like the Royal Guard kept a very close watch on him—most of the local Guards were too busy digging holes or eating at Grillby’s, and they were usually happy to forgive him being late if he gave them a bone or two to play with. But today, he had a reason to get to work on time—or early, as it was. Today, he had something to look forward to.

He could feel Papyrus’s eyes locked on him until the house disappeared behind him, and he tried his best to shove down the guilt building in his head.

He got there faster than he had ever gotten into work before. He set his stuff down at his sentry station, just to show that he had indeed come in to work—if anyone bothered to check—then hurried off in as close to a run as he ever got toward the door.

When it finally came into sight, he slowed down, just a little. And again, he wondered if anyone would respond if he called out. Maybe it had been a dream, or maybe it hadn’t. Maybe the lady would be busy, or maybe she hadn’t enjoyed their chat yesterday as much as he thought.

But he kept going. Even if it had all been in his head, even if she _didn’t_ come back … well, it wasn’t going to help anything to just stand around staring at nothing.

If he had to face the facts, it was better sooner than later.

He stopped in front of the door, tilting his head back to appreciate the height of it. He lifted his hand, paused, then lowered it to his side. Instead, he cleared his throat.

“knock knock.”

He didn’t know how he could hear someone flinching, even when he hadn’t heard any sign of them before, but somehow the lady managed to break his expectations again.

“Oh! You’re back.”

Sans smiled a little softer, a little wider, a little more amused, as the muffled voice made its way through the door. “so are you.”

“Indeed.”

She sounded pleased. Even though he didn’t know her voice all that well yet, she made it obvious enough. She was happy to hear him. She had been waiting for him.

He tried to remember the last time someone other than Papyrus had been this eager to see him.

Then several faces popped into his head, and he shoved them away before they could settle.

He cleared his throat.

“so i was wondering …”

“Yes?” she asked when he trailed off, her voice faintly concerned.

He smiled wider.

“why did the dinosaur cross the road?”

She paused, then chuckled, and he could hear the relaxed anticipation slip into her voice.

“I don’t know. Why?”

His smile tilted into a smirk. “because chickens hadn’t evolved yet.”

And then she was off, laughing as hard as she had the day before, and Sans felt himself sink into the snow, tugging his knees close to his chest, settling in for another round.

They spent the whole day like that. Well, almost the whole day—the lady left for about an hour, saying that she had to get lunch and “run a quick errand,” whatever that meant for her, and he took the time to stop by his post and pretend like he was getting work done. There were no signs that any of the Guards had checked up on him yet, but he still stuck a handmade sign on his post with “back in 20 minutes - humans please wait here” on the front.

A few months ago, he might not have believe that the Royal Guard would buy that. He had learned a lot about the Royal Guard in the past few months.

Just as he expected, no one came looking for him, and he and the lady spent the entire day at the door, cracking jokes they had heard and even making up a few new ones. Once or twice, they fell into something closer to real conversation. Nothing personal. Just … easy small talk. What was the weather like the Ruins? Had there been any fresh snowfall in Snowdin? The lady carefully shifted the topic away from _why_ she was in the Ruins, but she was happy to talk about what it was like there. Sans had never been. He had seen the door, of course, when his dad had brought him and Pap here to visit Grillby, but as far as he knew, it had been locked for decades.

So either the lady had found a way in … or she had been there already.

Well. She _did_ sound kind of old. Maybe she really _had_ been in there already.

He didn’t think about it much, and he didn’t ask her any questions that made her uncomfortable. She was careful not to upset him, and he wanted to do the same for her. He liked her, and he liked their conversations, and he wanted them to continue.

And the next day, they did. And the day after that: the morning, afternoon, and even part of the evening filled with more puns and knock-knock jokes than he had thought two people could produce. It was … nice. It was nostalgic, in an odd sort of way, though at first, he couldn’t figure out why.

It wasn’t until he was heading home on the fourth day that he remembered the last person who had told him jokes like that.

The last person who had thought jokes like that were funny.

The person who had kept on making those jokes no matter how many times Sans groaned and dropped his head on the table.

It was … uncomfortable, both how long it took him to remember and the fact that he remembered at all. Sometimes he wanted to remember. Sometimes he was desperate to remember. And sometimes … sometimes he just wanted to pretend he could forget. Sometimes, he could almost believe he would _never_ really forget.

He spent the evening thinking about it, and did his best to brush Papyrus off when he asked him what was wrong. He ate dinner. He read Papyrus his story. He went to bed. And he lay there for hours, staring at the ceiling, playing back old memories in his head and trying to decide whether or not they were all real.

But the next morning, when Papyrus banged on his door and announced that he was going to be late for work, he got up without complaint. He got dressed, ate breakfast, and took the same shortcut to the other side of Snowdin. He flopped down in front of the door, knocked, and found himself smiling when the lady laughed on the other side.

Within five minutes, he had forgotten why he was upset in the first place.

And within ten, he was laughing as hard as he ever did, and the memories that had pressed down on him like boulders last night had never felt so far away.

*

“you know, i never asked your name.”

He wasn’t really thinking when he said it. He did that a lot nowadays, when talking to the lady. Of course, he still _thought_ about what he said—he really couldn’t afford to let anything important slip—but he didn’t craft each sentence as carefully as he did around everyone else.

He thought of something to say, and if it passed through a thin filter, it came out.

He didn’t think this was a very strange question. After all, they had been talking for a couple of weeks now, almost every day. Most people introduced themselves long before that point. Then again, most people also didn’t talk strictly through a door, but still.

For a half a minute, she said nothing. He didn’t get the feeling she was upset, but … well, it was hard to tell when all he had to go by was the sound of her breathing through the door.

“I admit, it feels odd, giving my name to someone who has not seen my face,” she said.

He assumed, at first, that maybe she didn’t think she could trust him. And for an equally short period of time, he thought that this was a good time to suggest she just … open the door so he _could_ see her face. But he had been reading people for most of his life, and neither of those things felt right.

“guess so,” he replied, careful to keep his tone neutral.

She remained silent for a while after that. He could still hear her there, breathing, moving around a little, but he found himself worrying anyway. Maybe he had crossed a line. Maybe … maybe this was something he just wasn’t supposed to ask. He tried to tell himself that it didn’t matter. He had asked a question, an ordinary question, and if she was so offended by it that she didn’t want to talk to him anymore … well. He couldn’t do anything about that.

But he still found himself thinking how much he would miss her.

Then she cleared her throat, and Sans straightened up.

“May I propose something?” she asked, carefully, as if she were nervous about it.

Sans raised one half of his browbone, but of course she couldn’t see that, so he added, “sure.”

She hesitated for a few seconds, and he could imagine her licking her lips in thought, though he didn’t actually know what her face looked like.

“Why don’t we each remain … anonymous? We may talk about our lives, people we know, but … not our names.”

It seemed … odd, when she first said it. He couldn’t lie and say that he wasn’t curious about who he was talking to. But at the same time, it made sense. He knew there was a reason she hadn’t opened the door yet, a reason why she lived in the Ruins when only a few monsters were still there. And if she didn’t want him to know who she really was … well. He could live with that.

At least, he had no reason to take it personally.

“whatever works for you, lady,” he said with a shrug.

He swore he heard her give a sigh of a relief.

“Good,” she replied, her smile shining through in her voice. “In that case, do you have any questions for me?”

Sans paused, trying to think of any of his questions that didn’t involve identifying traits.

“uh … what’s your favorite food?”

She hummed. “Oh, that’s very difficult … but I think snail pie would be my favorite.”

Sans pulled a face.

“really?”

“Of course,” she said, as if it should have been obvious. “Snails are both delicious and very good for you.”

Sans had only ever known snails as “something Dr. Japer tried to stick in their stuffed pasta when their dad had been feeding them only junk food for weeks,” but … hey. To each their own.

“okay then.”

“And yours?” she asked.

This time it took him only a couple of seconds. “ketchup.”

She paused again.

“Ketchup on what?”

There was an odd hesitance in her voice that made him chuckle. He shrugged.

“anything, really.”

She let out a sigh with a laugh mixed in.

“Oh,” she said, chuckling again. “For a moment, I thought you meant that you enjoyed ketchup all on its own.”

Sans blinked. He … hadn’t thought about that. But … well, he _did_ like ketchup, and people ate _tomatoes_ on their own, and even tomato soup, so …

He cut that train of thought off before it could go too far, tucking it away in the back of his head and forcing a laugh.

“heh. that’s good.” She laughed, too, a little quieter than usual. “so … favorite color?”

“Hmm … purple. And you?”

He almost said “blue,” but then he paused, a familiar face popping into his head, smiling and bright and so, so warm.

“orange,” he said, so quietly he almost wasn’t sure she could hear it.

“Ah, orange is lovely,” she said, and he could hear her smiling again. “Let’s see … do you live in Snowdin?”

“yep. right on the edge, by waterfall,” he replied. He paused, knowing that the next question was going to be heavier than they had meant this conversation to be. But hey, she had been the one to bring it up, and she must have known he would send it back to her. Besides, he couldn’t deny he was curious … He cleared his throat. “and you … live in the ruins.”

“… Yes.”

She did an admirable job of acting like it didn’t affect her, but Sans had been listening to the undertones of things for far too long not to pick it up. He should let it go. He knew he should let it go. But … he probably wasn’t going to get another chance …

“been there long?” he asked, before he could talk himself out of it.

“… Quite some time, yes,” she said.

She was uncomfortable, but not upset. Good. That was … about as far as he was wishing to push it. The last thing he wanted was to alienate the one person who could actually pun back at him at an equal level.

“cool,” he said, quietly, casually, as if the weight in the air wasn’t threatening to make him tip over. “your turn.”

Some of the weight lifted, faster than he had expected, as if she was used to letting topics come and go. He wondered how many people had asked her the same question before.

“Do you live alone?” she asked, her voice showing no sign of the sudden change of subject.

Now _that_ made Sans smile, a little wider, even though she wouldn’t see it.

“nah. got my bro.”

“Oh, you have a brother?” she asked, and he could hear the joy, the smile, in her tone, and he wasn’t sure if the warmth in his chest was from remembering Papyrus or knowing that he had made her happy again. “May I ask his name, or is that out of bounds?”

He wanted to remind her that it was her who had come up with the “bounds” in the first place, but he just shrugged it off.

“nah, i think that’s fine. it’s papyrus.”

“Papyrus,” she repeated, and it was oddly satisfying to hear her say it. “Is he older or younger?”

“we’re twins,” Sans replied, and he found himself wondering when was the last time he told anyone. Or the last time anyone had asked.

The lady sighed with an odd fondness.

“Twins … oh, that’s lovely. Identical?”

Sans almost snorted. “definitely not. he’s … a lot taller.”

She paused.

“Are you quite short, then?” she asked, carefully.

Sans would have been happy to answer her—if anyone would be willing to listen about the trials and tribulations of being one of the shortest monsters around, the lady would—but found himself pausing.

“does that count as out of bounds? do i get to ask how tall you are?”

“… That’s a good point,” she replied. “I believe physical appearances are similar enough to names … it would feel odd to try to imagine your physical appearance based on a description alone.”

A tiny part of Sans was disappointed that he wouldn’t get to play “guess what the lady looks like” with actual descriptions, but hey, that just made it more of a challenge. So he shrugged.

“works for me.”

She chuckled. “Alright then. Next question. What is your favorite snow-related game?”

Sans grinned a little wider, without even thinking, and leaned up closer to the door.

“well, my brother made this new one up last week …”

* 

Two days later, on a whim, he opened the bottle of ketchup in the cabinet and took a sip.

It was … weird, at first. But then he took another sip, and he realized it wasn’t actually bad. It was … kind of good. A little tangier than he was used to without something to buffer it, but it still had the same sweet, salty taste he loved.

He took the rest of the bottle up to his room and reminded himself to buy more the next time he went shopping.

It took a week for Papyrus to find out about his new habit, and he was, as Sans had expected, slightly horrified.

Sans kept doing it anyway.

He mentioned it to the lady once, and her response was somehow even more pronounced than Papyrus, even though she wasn’t half as loud. She spent the next ten minutes lecturing him about healthy eating, and he listened, sort of, though he was mostly just appreciating the company rather than actually listening to what she had to say.

Then he made a joke, and she laughed, like she always did, and they were right back to where they were before.

And every day it was the same. Sometimes their conversation topics drifted, to themselves or their lives—though never anything specific—before falling back to jokes. He smiled more than he had smiled in a long time. Every once in a while, he thought about telling Papyrus about her, but he never actually did so.

Sometimes he would catch his brother staring at him before he left for work, or when he came back, and he couldn’t tell whether he looked more concerned or relieved. He never asked.

He got up, he went to his station, he sat there for a little while, he talked to the lady, then he went back home, read Papyrus a story, and went to sleep, only to get up and do it all over again. It always the same, but somehow, it never got old.

He had been talking to her for more than two months when he first visited her on a bad day.

That wasn’t to say it was the first bad day he had had in those two months. He didn’t get them as often as he had early on, but he still got them, at least once every couple of weeks. The days when he could barely bring himself to get out of bed, the days when he told Papyrus that he was just feeling especially lazy that day and Papyrus shouted at him but Sans knew he wasn’t actually angry. The days when Papyrus brought him books from the library or stuff from the dump—ranging from puzzles to action figures to a fully intact trombone—to try to cheer him up. The days when he found his mind drifting back to the bubbling lava under the Core, even if he knew nothing would actually come of it.

Normally, he would just stay at home during those days. He would come to visit her the next day and tell her that he had been feeling under the weather, and she would chide him about taking care of himself and eating healthy and getting plenty of rest, and he would make a joke out of it, and everything would go back to normal.

But today …

Today he found himself walking, out of the house and through town, even as the fog continued to descend on his mind. Even though every step felt like dragging anvils through the snow. When he reached the door, he all but collapsed in front of it, flopping down into the snow and leaning against the wood to rest his head. If he listened very closely, he could make out the sound of breathing on the other side. Breathing, and feet shuffling on the floor.

He settled more firmly against the door.

“knock knock.”

“Oh!” The voice came so quickly, so sharply, that it sounded more like a gasp than actual words. There was a long pause, then a heavy breath, like a sigh of relief. “I was worried you weren’t coming.”

Sans smiled without humor. “you’re supposed to say ‘who’s there’?”

The lady paused again. He didn’t think she sounded angry, and after all, he had been absent on several days already without warning, and she hadn’t complained except to tell him that she had been worried. So he waited, leaning a little closer against the door almost without thinking.

“Are you alright?” she asked at last.

Sans clenched his teeth and felt his eyelights dim.

“… yeah, i’m fine,” he said, unconvincingly, even to his own hearing. “just slept in a little today.”

“Have you been staying up late again?” she went on, and though she had a touch of a chastising tone, she sounded more gentle and concerned than anything else.

He huffed a laugh that held as little humor as his smile.

“nah … just tired.”

She paused again, longer this time. Sans let himself settle a little into the snow. He was still tired. Not enough that he thought he might fall asleep here, if he was going to fall asleep he wasn’t going to do it while talking with the lady, but …

“I have those days, too, sometimes.”

Sans sat up. He found himself turning to stare at the door, even though he knew it was ridiculous, even though he knew he couldn’t see her and she couldn’t see him. Of course, he saw nothing but old painted wood, and yet still he found himself grinning incredulously as the words sunk in.

“what, you? c’mon, you’re the healthiest person i know.”

He tried, he really tried, to make it sound like that was what they were talking about. Staying up too late, not taking care of yourself. Like it was really that simple. Because that was what _she_ was talking about, without a doubt, and that was what he _wanted_ to talk about.

But … there was something in her voice that sounded a little … different than he would have expected, given the other times they had talked about similar topics. Sure, she was a bit of a health nut, she was adamant that going to bed at a “decent time” was essential for good health, and she knew enough about him to know he didn’t take the best care of himself, but even to her, it wasn’t _that_ serious.

She let out a breath just loud enough for him to hear, and he perked up again.

“Everyone has days that are more difficult than others,” she went on, and he definitely wasn’t imagining it now, he could hear it it in her tone, the weight, the seriousness that she wasn’t even trying to hide. “I know I have days when I … when I find it difficult to get up. When it seems like life is weighing me down, to the point that I cannot even lift my own body.”

Sans swore he felt himself getting colder. Heavier. He knew it was impossible, the cold never bothered him, and skeletons couldn’t even _gain_ weight, not like some other monsters could. He wrapped his arms around his torso, holding his hoodie a little closer to himself.

“sounds rough.”

The lady sighed.

“Yes, it can be,” she agreed, gently, with a note of affection touching her voice. “I find that it helps to talk about it, though.”

Sans tried not to pull a face, even though he knew she wouldn’t see it. “… maybe.”

She was silent for a long time after that, and Sans was a little afraid he had offended her. He waited, and finally she let out another long breath, quieter than the first.

“Would you humor me with something?”

Sans quirked half of his browbone and settled a little further against the door. “uh, sure.”

“Tell me about your brother.”

Sans paused. And he blinked.

“papyrus?” he asked, even though he didn’t need to ask. He had heard her plenty well. She didn’t reply, and a few seconds later he cleared his throat and sat up straighter. “uh … okay. thought i already told you about him.”

She chuckled. “Well, it’s been some time. Remind me.”

Sans was fairly sure that it hadn’t been more than two days since he had talked about Papyrus, but nonetheless, he found his voice coming out all on its own. He didn’t even have to think about it. He just talked, and the words knit themselves together like they had been waiting to fall from his throat.

He wasn’t sure which brother he was talking about at times. He talked about their childhood, leaving out the details but keeping the warmth that had settled over the memories. He talked about his talents, his quirks, his passions. He talked about their lives more recently, what Papyrus had been doing around town, something he had tried to cook, or how he had been spending so much time with the Captain of the Royal Guard lately. His whole form relaxed against the door. The lady only interrupted with hums of acknowledgement and chuckles and questions, and he kept going, for hours and hours until something he said led into a joke, and then they were back to their old routine until the darkness began to settle around him.

She wished him well, and told him to eat a good dinner and get lots of sleep. He chuckled and told her to do the same, even though he knew he probably wouldn’t, and she probably would. Then he walked back home, his head high, his smile easier than it had been in a long time.

It wasn’t until he reached his house, and Papyrus pulled him into a hug and told him that he was glad his extra-lazy streak was over, that Sans remembered he had been having one at all.

* 

“Do you like music?”

The question came out of the blue, during one of the comfortable silences between jokes and other conversation topics. But Sans was used to out-of-the-blue questions, and while it might have thrown him once, now, he hardly even blinked.

“music?” he asked, just to make sure.

“Yes. I just realized that I’ve never asked.”

He paused, thinking, then shrugged.

“sure, music’s cool,” he replied. “my brother found this trombone in the dump, and i play it sometimes.”

He still had no idea what the lady looked like, but he always seemed to know when she was smiling.

“Oh, that’s lovely! I’ve dabbled in piano a bit, but it’s been quite some time.”

One corner of Sans’s mouth quirked up. “hey, that sounds cool. maybe you could drag a piano over to the door and i’ll bring my trombone and we’ll start a band.”

She laughed. “Wouldn’t that be a sight!”

He grinned a little wider.

“well, maybe not a _sight,_ but …”

She laughed again, louder than before, and he felt some of the residual tension in his bones drift away, as it always did. Her laugh didn’t have quite the effect that Papyrus’s did, but then again, neither did anyone else’s. Hers was still a close second.

The sound faded to chuckles, and he imagined her shaking her head.

“I admit I am not very skilled at piano. I have only had much practice in singing.”

He perked up. “you sing?”

She made a sound a little like a laugh, but more embarrassed than amused.

“Oh, not very well … I’ve mostly just sung to my … family.”

“any favorite songs?” he asked.

She gave a fond sigh. “Oh, I have so many …”

She trailed off into a long pause, and Sans waited. He had learned to tell when she was really done speaking and when she just needed to think, even without any physical cues. And just as expected, half a minute later, she spoke again, a little quieter and more hesitant than before.

“But … there is one I am quite fond of,” she said, and he could tell that she was still unsure about sharing it. “I don’t know if you would have heard it. It is … quite old. And it is … rather sad as well. But it is one of my favorites.”

Unsure, but fond. Unsure whether he would be interested, even though she undoubtedly _wanted_ to share it. He settled a little closer against the door.

“can you sing it?”

Another pause, though not quite as long as before.

“… as long as you promise not to laugh at my singing.”

Sans smiled, and it didn’t feel even a little like a smirk. “you got it, lady.”

He listened to her shift back and forth, her feet—large, by the sound of it—scraping against the stone floor inside. Finally, she sighed, and though it sounded mostly like a sigh of defeat, he swore he could still hear a smile.

“Very well.”

Sans’s mouth quirked up at the corners, but he said nothing else.

He heard her take a deep breath, and a second later, she began to sing.

“Hush a bye lu, my tiny darling. Hush baby sleep while the moon rules the sky. Your daddy’s the finest, a Prince of all Mercia, the stars will guide him back to us by and by …”

She wasn’t a professional singer, by any means. She was quiet, and her voice cracked on the notes that went outside her range, and he was pretty sure a few notes were out of tune.

But he barely noticed that. He barely noticed the words or the skill of her singing.

All her heard was her voice.

Her voice, that carried so much emotion, so much love, that he could almost feel her arms around him. He didn’t know what she looked like, he didn’t know if she was made of scales or skin or fur or a pile of goop, but he could still feel her, soft and warm and safe, so close that her soul thrummed against him.

Her hand brushing over his skull, rubbing little circles, rocking him as she chatted with his dad, her tone gentle and kind and loving, shifting effortlessly into a lullaby as she tried to guide him into sleep, his brother tucked close to him in her lap, he was safe with her, he was always safe in her arms.

But that wasn’t her.

This wasn’t Dr. Ja—

His breath hitched, and his eyes squeezed shut against the tears that burned his sockets. He wasn’t going to cry. He didn’t have any tears left, and besides, he wasn’t going to let the lady behind the door hear him cry. If she heard him cry, she might worry. If she heard him cry, she might stop.

So he stayed silent, and kept listening. He pressed his head close to the door and listened to the soft crooning of her voice, allowing himself, however briefly, to imagine a smiling face covered in black fur, a warm, fuzzy hand brushing over his skull.

“Hush for your mammy, so far from her homeland. Soft the trees sway to the north wind’s sad song. Safe under Earendel, brightest of angels, close those eyes quiet and sleep the night long …”

*

The song was still echoing in his head a week later, and once or twice he had even found himself humming it under his breath as he made his trek to work.

Apparently he had also hummed it once while Papyrus picked out a bedtime story, and Papyrus had been quick to comment that he had never heard that song before, and to ask him where he had heard it.

He said that one of his co-workers must have been singing it, and he supposed it wasn’t quite as much of a lie as it felt like.

Papyrus gave him a brief, funny look, then sighed dramatically, muttering about how lazy Sans’s co-workers must be, before he went back to plucking an advanced puzzle-making book off of his bookshelf.

But even when he tried to put the song out of his head, it stayed there, like it had burrowed itself deep into his skull and now refused to leave. The song and the lady’s voice. The song, the lady’s voice, and all the memories that came with it.

It hurt like hell. But at the same time, he wanted to hold it close and never let it go.

It kept echoing even when he was talking to the lady, and sometimes he found his mind drifting away from their conversation, from their jokes, and back to the song. It wasn’t even just the words. It was the tone. The softness. The lilt to her voice.

It was the same way Dr. Japer had sung to them when they were small.

The same way his dad had tried to sing, even if he had never been very good at it.

And it made him notice all the other things about her.

Even when she wasn’t singing, he still heard that same lilt, that same gentle tone. He noticed how often she asked about his health, about how well he was sleeping or eating, the fondness in her voice that was a lot like the way Dr. Japer had talked to him when he was small.

The thought rolled around in his head for a few days, louder and louder, even as he kept making jokes, even as they went about their normal routine of chatting during his shifts. Even though, to the best of his knowledge, he gave no sign that it was there.

He really should have known that a lull in the conversation, not even ten seconds long, was all it would take.

“you’re a mom, aren’t you?”

The question came out before he even realized he was thinking it. For a second, he froze, wondering if he could pass it off as a joke or somehow take it back, before he forced himself to relax.

He had yet to offend her, no matter what sort of jokes he made. Hopefully, the pattern would continue.

Still, he fidgeted as she took her time with her answer. Was she the sort that showed her anger outright or stuffed it? She had certainly become … passionate when talking about a few issues that bothered her, but she had never been openly angry at _him._ Maybe …

“… What makes you say that?”

His shoulders fell, and he bit back a sigh of relief. Okay. No anger, then. She sounded … curious? Or sad. Or both.

He cleared his throat and shrugged, even though he knew she wouldn’t see. “just a guess.”

She chuckled at that. It didn’t sound like a happy chuckle.

“I suppose I am.”

“you suppose?” he asked, slowly, carefully.

She chuckled again, and it sounded a little more amused than before.

“It depends on how you look at it,” she replied. He didn’t say anything, but apparently she already knew that he was waiting for an explanation. He would have let it go, if she wanted to change the subject. But after a long, long pause, she sighed again, and he listened to her shifting on the other side of the door. “Are you still a mother if you don’t have … if there are no … if your children aren’t here?”

Sans gritted his teeth.

Well. That said all he needed to know right there.

He hesitated. This wasn’t the sort of thing he wanted to answer wrong. Frankly, this wasn’t the sort of thing he wanted to answer at _all_ —he didn’t really care for heavy topics—but … the lady had listened to him. And he cared about her. He cared about her a lot. Even if it was just something small, something that might not even help …

He cleared his throat.

“i guess it’s up to you to decide that,” he said, very carefully. “but i think so.”

The lady let out a soft breath, and he could tell, right away, that he had said the right thing.

“That’s good to know,” she murmured, as much to herself as to him, by the sound of it. “I love being a mother. I think it is my favorite thing in the world.”

He almost said that her kids must be pretty lucky, but the words died before they could reach his teeth. He didn’t have to know the details to know that would be the wrong thing to say.

“i can tell,” he replied instead, and even though she didn’t respond, he was sure she was smiling.

They didn’t say anything else for a long time, but it wasn’t awkward or uncomfortable. It had been a long time since the silence had been anything other than an invitation for spiraling thoughts, but now … now it was like a blanket, wrapped around him, tucked tight and warm.

And if he closed his eyes, he could almost imagine the person holding the blanket smiling at him, bright, soft eyes, even if an image in his head was all she ever was.

* 

“My friend?”

The lady had been silent for a few minutes, but Sans wasn’t surprised to hear her talk. Silence happened more and more often nowadays, when they had both exhausted their daily supply of jokes and had to take time to think of more. When they couldn’t think of something to talk about. It still wasn’t awkward. It was comfortable. It was … easy, in a way that silence hadn’t been easy for him in a long time.

Even though he couldn’t see her. Even though, for all he knew, she had left, gone back into whatever home she had within the Ruins. Even though he couldn’t see her face to read it.

Maybe this was what it felt like to trust someone.

“mm?” he replied, shifting his feet in the snow. His slippers were beyond soaked, as they always were within five minutes of him leaving the house, but they dried off. Papyrus had scolded him sometimes for not wearing more sensible shoes to work, but they were comfortable. He liked them. And it felt like one small thing in his life that he could still control.

“Where are your parents?”

Sans laughed, and hoped it covered up the choking sound in the back of his throat.

It took him a couple seconds to get his thoughts together, but then he laughed again, a little quieter, and probably just as unconvincing.

“‘m all grown up, lady. don’t need any parents.”

The thing about not being able to see someone’s face was that you didn’t know what expression they were making during awkward pauses. Normally Sans had at least a small idea, but now … now he was coming up blank. He tried to read her, tried to listen to the faint sounds of her breath and guess what she was thinking. But he got nothing. So he was left to just wait, wait and grit his teeth and listen.

“You don’t see them, then?” she asked, very carefully.

Sans tilted his head away, even though he knew it wouldn’t make a difference. “can’t.”

He didn’t need to see her to feel her flinch, and instantly he cursed himself. Stupid. Stupid stupid _stupid_ he wasn’t supposed to say things like that not to her not to anyone that was over it didn’t matter no one remembered _no one_ but him no one would ever know and that was the way it was that was the way it had to be.

He hear something shift against the wood of the door. It sounded like her head, moving down until it rested near where his own head lay. He imagined, for a moment, that she would have stroked his skull, if she had been able to reach him.

“I’m sorry,” she said.

Sans grit his teeth. “i’m not.”

Was he? Maybe. He didn’t know. Sometimes he … sometimes he missed him more than anything in the world and sometimes he woke up from a dream and he remembered all the things that had happened and he was so _glad_ he was gone but maybe things would have been different if he had lived maybe he would have changed maybe if Sans could have saved him he … he …

“Ah ... friend?”

Sans felt his hands trembling, curled into fists at his sides, and forced them to relax. He let out a long, heavy breath, not even bothering to muffle it.

“yeah?” he asked.

The lady paused.

“You know I care about you very much, don’t you?”

Sans shifted his head against the wood of the door, like he could look up at her, like he knew what she looked like, like he could actually _see_ her. Like she wasn’t just a bodiless voice he shared jokes with when he didn’t want to do his job. Like she wasn’t his only distraction, his only comfort, until he could go home in the evenings and see his brother’s smile.

But it didn’t matter, he found, that he couldn’t see her. That he had no idea what she looked like.

She was still there. She had been there, for months, and even though he didn’t know if she would be there tomorrow, even though he didn’t know that she wouldn’t disappear and leave him just like everything else in his life … he knew she meant it. Right here, right now, in this moment, she cared about him. For real.

And …

He leaned a little closer to the door, lifting one of his own hands to rest above the spot where hers lay, and he swore he could feel the warmth of it despite the space in between.

“yeah, lady,” he said, like a whisper, but one he had no doubt carried to the other side. “me too.”

**Author's Note:**

> The song Toriel sings is [The Ilam Lullaby](http://www.darkpeakandwhite.com/ilamlullaby.html), which I found by chance while searching for Anglo-Saxon lullabies. The song comes from the story of St. Bertram, from Staffordshire, who lived most of his life as a hermit in the Ilam area. He was either a prince or a king who fell in love with and eloped with an Irish princess. She gave birth to a child, but both the mother and baby were killed and eaten by wolves in the forest. Bertram renounced his royal heritage and became a hermit, known as a wise and holy figure who people would seek out for advice and comfort. The Ilam Lullaby was written for the nameless Irish princess. I read the story and found it … painfully fitting for Toriel.


End file.
